The real world won't care much about your self-esteem

1. Life is not fair. Get used to it. The average teen-ager uses the phrase "It's not fair" 86 times a day.
2. The real world won't care as much about your self-esteem as your school does. This may come as a shock.
3. Sorry, you won't make $40,000 a year as soon as you get out of high school. And you won't be a vice president and have a car phone, either. You may even have to wear a uniform that doesn't have a designer label.
4. If you think your teacher is tough, wait until you get a boss.
5. Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents had a different word for burger flipping. They called it "opportunity."
6. It's not your parents' fault if you mess up. You're responsible. This is the mirror image of "It's my life" and "You're not my boss."
7. Before you were born, your parents weren't boring. They got that way by paying bills and listening to you.
8. Life is not divided into semesters. And you don't get summers off. Not even spring break. You are expected to show up every day for eight hours, and you don't get a new life every 10 weeks.
9. Smoking does not make you look cool. Watch an 11-year-old with a butt in his mouth. That's what you look like to anyone over 20.
10. Your school may be "outcome-based," but life isn't. In some schools, you're given as many chances as you want to get the answer right. Standards are set low enough so nearly everyone can meet them. This, of course, bears not the slightest resemblance to anything in real life - as you will soon find out.
Good luck. You are going to need it. And the harder you work, the luckier you will get.

That piece has likely been greatly modified while on a precarious journey around the internet. My copy was sent in an email from a friend. The original can be read in a book by Charles J. Sykes "50 Rules Kids Won't Learn in School: Real-World Antidotes to Feel-Good Education"

Charles J. Sykes is the author of five previous books: A Nation of Victims, Dumbing Down Our Kids, Profscam, The End of Privacy, and The Hollow Men. His columns have appeared in numerous newspapers, including The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. A radio and television host at WTMJ in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and a senior fellow at the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute, he is married and has three children.